I know that I ended my last post with me going to get you all caught up. There has been a lot of stress around here and truthfully I have had to fight with all my might not to binge. You know how it is, we run to the food to numb our world. I'm making myself to stop doing that and it is hard! Very hard! As I go along catching you up you will understand why life has been so hard for me!
Continued...
Monday started off as a usual day and Mark was a little uneasy about how his day was going to be in the new shop. I felt like things would be o.k. because there has never been any problems where he works and usually he just loves his job. Around mid-morning I got the urge to just pray for him. I did and I still felt uneasy so I called him. I questioned him and he said that he really couldn't talk. Well, I don't know about you but for me when my better half can't tell me what is going on in his world my world falls apart worrying about what is going on. He called me at noon to tell me that after he left on Sunday the owner's wife went through his desk and threw everything she didn't think belonged there on the top of it. She did that to each desk in the shop. He found out that the Service Writers and Cashiers had to stand and not sit down 12 hours a day, he and everyone in the Body Shop has to park 150 yards away from the office on the street except for the two ladies who work the front desk. It has been nuts and very ridiculous.
On Tuesday, he was told that he could not use his cell phone for any personal calls, outgoing or incoming but he could use it to call the guys in the shop on their cell phones if they needed to. The guys in the shop don't have a phone! They also can not have but one file at a time on their desk and let me explain why this is nuts. Let's say that Mark is inputting a estimate for a customer that is waiting on him to complete and Joe Blow calls on his line to check the status of his car. Mark has to put up the estimate and then dig out the other file and answer his question and then go back and get out the one that he was working on. It is stupid as these guy are usually working on 10 or more files each day and have about 30 open files at any given time. It costs them time, yet the owners have nearly doubled their goals of what they should bring in each month as a shop. I think you are getting the picture. Ridiculous!
Wednesday was a pretty normal day and through all of this I was able not to binge, eat my plan and work through the anxiety and anger that I was having. Huge binge triggers for me!
Thursday morning I got Mark off to his dreadful job and I decided to get on-line and read emails and catch up with Facebook. Just before it was time to go and get ready to head up to see Anna and Kathy I checked my email again and there sat a email from my Dad with no subject. I swear all the blood in my body went down to my big toes. I got nauseated, I asked myself if I was ready for this, I was kinda in a state of disbelief but I made my self open it up scared to death. What I saw was a link to a website and I knew that my Dad had a virus on his computer. I was sick, I cried and cried, I was angry and I had all other kinds of emotions going on. I didn't want to go see Anna and Kathy at this point. I just wanted to crawl back into bed and never wake up. I made myself take my shower and get dressed and by this time some emotions had calmed down but I left the house about 15 minutes early and I was out for a binge. Tunnel vision and the whole works. I wanted food and I needed food to numb me and to love me. That is how crazy this disease is. In your normal state you can see how ridiculous it all is and how food isn't going to fix anything or make you feel better but in the binge mode you just don't give a crap and all you are focused on is getting that fix and it must be the same thing for a druggie or a alcoholic! I pulled into Jack In the Box and I ordered me a Sausage Croissant Combo with a medium coke, and a Supreme Croissant with an extra order of hash browns. I also noticed a new hamburger and I made plans to stop there on my way home.
I crammed this food in my mouth while I was driving and I got to Anna's and went in and had to wait a few minutes for her When I walked in her office I just lost it. I told her about the email and I just bawled. I asked her how could my parents do this to me? I told her that it is doing nothing but confirming that they didn't love me! How could a parent reject their child at 56 years old? It is just totally beyond me and it is the last thing that I would have expected from my parents! I told Anna that I just couldn't take the pain any more. She told me that she didn't understand it either but that I would survive it and she assured me that it was their loss. I told her that I knew that our relationship would never be the same. I told her that I couldn't trust them, I don't know what to say to them, I don't know how much I can share with them and I told her how pissed off that I was. Towards the end of our session I told her that I binged on the way up there. Anna looked at me funny and said, I know we haven't really talked about your eating but I assumed with all that is going on that you were out of control. I then told her that I may have overeaten at times but that I had not binged since I started seeing Kathy. Anna's jaw dropped. She said to me "Are you kidding?" and I said "No!" I thought Anna was going to cry. For the first time I think that I made Anna speechless. She then told me how proud she was of me not to give into binging because I sure had enough going on to be binging. I told her that I hated myself for it but I was scared that I wouldn't be able to stop. She assured me that I could and she told me to make sure that I told Kathy about what was going on. She told me that Kathy might be able to help me. It was time for me to go and Anna gave me a big hug and told me that I would be o.k. and that I was a beautiful caring person and that my parents are crazy to have done to me what they did and that they don't deserve to have a child like me. I left and made it to my car without crying and luckily I was able to get to Kathy's without crying.
I have to sit in my car and wait for Kathy for about 30 minutes each week. I called Shannon my nieces partner and told her what happened and we talked and she let me vent. She also suffers with binging but she has gotten hers under control and she talked to me and told me that I could stop. She understood the pain that I was in and that she thought it was awful what O'Mommy and O'Daddy was doing to me. (That is what the grand kids call them). I got off the phone with Shannon and I went up to Kathy's office and waited for her.
I walked into her office and sat down as she pulled my file and pulled up my food records. I told her that before we went over the week that I needed to talk. I told her about what happened and I told her about the binge. I expected anger or disappointment from her and that was not what I expected. She simply asked me what do we do from here? I told her that I wanted to go back and get a new hamburger that I noticed that they had. I told her that I still wanted to binge. She said to me. "Can you go and have the hamburger another time?" I told her yes. "Do you think that today is a good day for that?" and I told her no. she said "I think what we need to do is plan to go and have just the hamburger another day and sit down and really enjoy it. I don't think today that you would enjoy it." I told her probably not but that I didn't know what to do. I told her that I was stuffed from breakfast so do I just wait till I get hungry again before I ate? She said to me "No. I want you to have your lunch at the time you have your lunch, I want you to have your snack at the time you have your snack and I want you to eat your dinner at the time you ate your dinner and I want you to not think about this morning because it is gone and it is over with. Do you think that you can do it?" I told her yes but that I wasn't hungry and I would be forcing lunch down. She said "If you went and got the hamburger and fries wouldn't you be doing the same?" I realized that is exactly what I would be doing. She said the best way to break a binge is to get right back on schedule with your eating. I told her o.k. She told me to be gentle with myself today and to go home and do something special. We the talked about my cross-stitching and how much I had and she told me that her mother was a big cross stitcher and had me beat. Kathy then told me that she cross stitched and that she loved the shop on Louetta and I told her that was where I go and that I knew the owner and we were good friends and that who was doing the retreat that I was going on in March. I told her she ought to get her mom to come down and go on it one year. She told me that would be fun. She then went through my Recovery Records and we talked about my week and all the emotional things that happened and that I should be proud that I fought to binge over all the rough circumstances. She reminded me that our goal every week was to cook 3 times and to eat breakfast and lunch at home. We talked about the times that I back-filled on my log and she told me that she wanted me to try and log just after eating and not go into the record on-line and catch up. I told her that I would. She told me to follow our plan, to get out some stitching and to bring some things that I have stitched next week along with what I work on this week. I told her that I would.
I left there feeling better and was determined to do what she asked me to do. I did go home and ate lunch at the time that I normally did and while I wasn't hungry just eating on time made me feel better. As the day went on as I ate my snack and then ate my dinner the binge of the morning faded away and I learned so much in my session. For the first time I saw first hand and I felt first hand how to gain control back. I felt how good it felt to not punishment myself for my behavior and can see that it only makes the situation worse. I can't describe the successful feelings is brings to your mentally as you advance through doing what you know you need to do. I also saw as time passed the emotions subsided and life went back to normal. Will this ever happen to me again? I absolutely believe that it will. I also believe that I will need someone to help me remember to eat my normal meal at the regular time and continue eating on schedule the rest of the day. I do hope in time that I will on my own know what to do when those emotions take over and cause the tunnel vision that the binge process causes. Do I think that I have more to learn? Absolutely! I see each week why diets don't work for people who have binge disorders. It is freeing to eat what I want in controlled quantity and stay satisfied and fulfilled of my wants, needs and desires. The key is planning, another key is to stop beating yourself up when you do slip up. I'm understanding what Kathy says about "baby steps" and I understand right now why I'm not losing weight like I really want to but I'm starting to see that it won't be too long before it will just start dropping off as I re-learn how to properly eat and live with my eating disorder. I really wish that I had found Kathy long ago. I can see that all the crap that Mike told me to do was the exact opposite of what I'm learning now. I'll be glad when he no longer lives in my head yelling at me when I did have a binge. I remember those hard gruff nasty talks and how my binges lasted for days because I was committed to show him he could not control me. I'm finally finding peace with food.
The story continues....
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